


Together

by Noteventhat (Facialteeth)



Series: Rarepairs [13]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Circle Era (Shadowhunter Chronicles), Domestic Fluff, Evil Jocelyn, Fatherhood, First Kiss, Good Valentine, Homophobic Clave, Internalized Homophobia, Kid Jonathan, M/M, Square Filled: Reverse Verse, baby clary, reverse verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29273136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Facialteeth/pseuds/Noteventhat
Summary: When Valentine decided to take his children and leave, he'd done so because he knew that Jocelyn was far beyond saving. What he hadn't intended was falling in love with his ex-parabatai turned werewolf but raising two kids together, maybe they both needed something to rely on.
Relationships: Luke Garroway/Valentine Morgenstern
Series: Rarepairs [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915978
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18
Collections: 5 Years of Shadowhunters Coda Event, SHBingo 20-21





	Together

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the Malec Servers 'Five Years of Shadowhunters' Rewatch and this is also filling my 'reverse verse' slot for SH Bingo.

Leaving wasn’t an easy choice, nor one that Valentine and Luke took lightly. Luke at least had already been separated from his life as a shadowhunter and everything that he’d ever known along with that. For Valentine, it was harder. He was still a shadowhunter, one held in high regard. He hadn’t been bitten and turned like Luke. For him to leave shadowhunter society would be a choice, one that inevitably came to pass.

Realizing just how bad Jocelyn was happened quickly. They’d all, or at least those of them that were starting to see through Jocelyn’s words to the truth, had started to suspect that things weren’t quite right for a while but it was Jonathan that made Valentine realize just how insane she’d really become. Until then, her endeavors had seemed like honest ones, maybe a little misguided at times but honestly fueled by a desire to protect the shadowhunter race.

After he realized what she’d done to his only son, there was no way he could excuse how far she’d fallen. He was horrified and confronting her had only made it worse. Hearing her insist she was making their son stronger, that it’s what they needed to do to protect themselves from the downworlders and all their advantages…

Valentine knew then that there was no fixing it. There was no getting through to her and with Clary just a newborn… Valentine knew that he had to get her out, before Jocelyn started making her ‘stronger’ just like she’d done to her brother.

This was all after Jocelyn had told Luke he should kill himself rather than live as a vile werewolf. That stance wasn’t surprising though. Any one of them would have probably thought that dying would be favorable but actually living it, having it happen to someone you loved… It changed things.

Or, it did for those who were still capable of change. It changed things for Valentine because when he spoke to Luke after he’d been turned, his voice still sounded the same. His smile was still the same. It didn’t seem like anything fundamental about him had changed at all. He was still the same person Valentine had trained with. He was still the same person who had cradled his son and his daughter the days they’d been born. How could Valentine find it in him to hate him, just because he’d been attacked? And more importantly, how could Jocelyn so easily?

Luke was the one that convinced him to leave and it didn’t take much convincing at all. They had a plan in place in a matter of a week. Valentine was going to take his children and he was going to leave. Luke and him were going to figure it all out after that. Luke promised that he had a mundane apartment they could move into - though how he possibly figured out how to do that, Valentine wasn’t sure. The entire mundane world was so confusing to Valentine but Luke said they’d figure it out and so, Valentine had to believe that they would.

He left with Clary only a week old, bundled against his chest and Jonathan, just about to turn two, held tight in his arms. Valentine hadn’t been sure if he should take Jonathan, though he was ashamed of that fact later. No one knew how what Jocelyn had done to him would affect him as he got older but Valentine knew that leaving his child behind to continue to be experimented on by her was not an option.

He could do things no one else could. Valentine relieved that moment seeing his eyes turn black in his nightmares but he was still a child. He was still _Valentine’s_ child and he was still two years old, learning how to run for the first time, learning how to string little sentences together and point at things he wanted.

How could Valentine leave him? Even if he was a liability, even if they didn’t know if they could handle what he could do, how could they not try when the alternative was leaving him behind with someone who would torture him?

Luke said they’d figure it out. Valentine had to believe they’d figure it out and as Valentine set off with both of his children held as close as they could be to his chest, he had to believe that together, him and Luke were going to figure this out. They didn’t have another choice.

They’d been living together for nearly a month when they kissed for the first time. Luke had been covered in baby vomit, holding an empty bottle in one hand as he held one of Jonathan’s toys that the toddler had somehow managed to smear jam on. It was a rare moment in the chaos of having two small children that Valentine paused and looked at Luke, really looked at him, and saw him in all his domestically glorious beauty.

Valentine had no clue how he’d have done this alone. He probably wouldn’t have. He wasn’t ‘single dad’ material, nor was he ‘single dad trying to figure out how to be a mundane for the first time’ material. He and his children were here safe because Luke had been willing to come with them and for a moment, Valentine wanted to tell him how thankful he was for that but he swallowed the words down instead.

He was never that great at expressing his feelings. Growing up as a shadowhunter didn’t quite raise them to know how to express themselves or learn how to do so easily.

In the moment, Valentine said nothing but it was later, with both of the kids finally asleep (though, Clary was bound to wake up eventually, crying until one of them went to cradle her) that Luke said something. Apparently, Valentine's face earlier had given away more than he’d hoped.

“Have you ever thought about…” Luke trailed off as Valentine turned to look at him and for a moment, they held eye contact in silence,

“Thought about?” Valentine probed softly.

Instantly, Luke’s eyes flickered away and just before he did, Valentine thought he saw a flash of something that confused him, something ashamed. “Never mind, it’s stupid,” Luke murmured.

“I’m sure it’s not,” Valentine said finally, letting the silence after his words overtake them.

“I just-” Luke shook his head softly, his eyes finding his hands in his lap. “Just earlier, you had a look on your face.”

Valentine swallowed. “A look like what?” He asked softly.

For a moment, Luke didn’t speak. When he finally did, his voice came out in a whisper, “Like you wanted to kiss me.”

Instantly, Valentine looked away from him and Luke flinched at the simple motion, rushing out suddenly, “Sorry, I said it was stupid.”

Valentine found himself staring at the wall. His knee jerk reaction was to deny it and tell Luke he’d vastly misunderstood whatever look he’d seen on his face but Valentine paused for a moment and he thought about it.

Did he want to kiss him? Valentine didn’t feel like that was something he’d be allowed to want to do or even admit to. If they’d both still been shadowhunters, they’d have never said it. They’d both have faced deruning for it. They’d have faced losing everything but they weren’t shadowhunters anymore and they certainly weren’t parabatai.

What was stopping him from admitting it here, in their own home, if he did want to kiss him? Nothing and that left a single question for Valentine to ponder. Did he want to kiss him? Honestly, the thought hadn’t occurred to him before. He hadn’t imagined he could want that before now but the answer most certainly wasn’t ‘no’.

“Would you like that?” Valentine asked slowly, still not looking over.

“If you did,” Luke murmured, also not looking over.

They lapsed into silence yet again before finally, Valentine spoke, “Can I think about it?”

“Of course,” Luke answered and it seemed as simple as that. Valentine would think about it and after a beat, Clary’s high pitched crying started ringing through the air.

Luke leapt up quicker than Valentine had ever seen him move before and he was darting out of the room towards the nursery, speaking over his shoulder as he left, “I’ll get her. You… think.”

So, Valentine sat and he thought.

It took Luke nearly a half an hour before Clary stopped crying. Valentine had assumed he’d finally gotten her to fall asleep again but then, Luke appeared in the doorway, cradling Clary in one of his arms as he balanced a bottle in the other.

“She just wouldn’t stop,” he explained as he came to the couch. “I guess she’s hungry today.”

Valentine hummed softly, peering down at Clary’s small face as Luke sat. She was nearly the size of Luke’s arm now, with her feet just barely dipping into Luke’s hand. Valentine felt a burst of fondness in his chest, not only for his child but for the man holding her as well.

The urge to kiss him felt awkward and weird. Valentine felt like he should do anything but give into it. He felt like if he did, someone was bound to be right there, peering around the corner. Someone was bound to catch them and then, Valentine didn’t even know what would happen but there was no one else here to see. There was no one here to judge or stop them, unless Valentine stopped himself.

Luke said something about Clary, murmuring about how hungry Clary was still but Valentine didn’t even hear him. He looked up suddenly, moving forward before he could stop himself. Their lips met for a brief moment before Valentine was jerking away, suddenly looking anywhere but at Luke’s face.

Luke froze beside him and after a beat or two, he laughed softly. “So, you thought about it?” He asked, gently bouncing his arm as Clary started to fuss.

“I thought about it,” Valentine replied simply.

They didn’t consider themselves together right after that. It took a couple more awkward stray kisses before they grew a lot more at ease with it but eventually, they grew more comfortable in their own home and by the time that Clary and Jonathan were old enough to remember them, they were together and both of their children had two parents.

Valentine hadn’t imagined that would be the case when he and Luke agreed to run away. It certainly hadn’t been what he’d been thinking about but away from Idris and the suffocating oppression of the Clave, they fell into love easily and Valentine couldn’t quite complain about the way things had turned out.

He still thought about Jocelyn. She thought they were dead and Valentine prayed every night that it would remain that way. It wasn’t long after they left that the Circle started to fall out of favor with the Clave.

Jocelyn ‘died’ not soon after but Valentine knew she wasn’t really dead. She wouldn’t have died that easily and just when the Clave had turned on her? No, she was out there and if she ever knew the four of them were alive still, Valentine knew that Jocelyn would never stop until she found them.

Valentine hoped that would never happen. He hoped his children would grow up and be as normal as they possibly could and he hoped that together, he and Luke would manage to protect them from their mother and the danger they’d be in if she ever found them.

Valentine couldn’t see the future. He didn’t know what would happen but he did know that no matter what they faced, he and Luke would handle it together. They had to.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm taking some obvious liberties with the circle plot line here. The cup? Ehh. The fire that 'killed' Jonathan? Never even happened! But lets all ignore that.


End file.
